Assessing Without Levels

Assessing Without Levels at Spinney Hill Primary School

What has changed in school about assessment of your child’s learning?

With the changes to the National Curriculum in September 2014 there have also been changes to how children are assessed. Children are no longer being given a level of attainment in Y1, 3, 4 and 5 e.g. L1a, L4c. Your child will now be assessed against age expectations for the year group they are in. From September 2015 this will also include children who are in Y2 and Y6. There will still be End of Key Stage Tests in Y2 and Y6 and a phonics test in Y1.

We are using an online programme called Target Tracker to record summative assessments of our progress. That is a judgement made each half term.

To help us make judgements about your child’s learning we are using statements from the National Curriculum Programmes of Study. We have used two publications to support teachers

Statements taken from Target Tracker in Mathematics

Statements taken from Parks Progression in learning for English

Each half term your child will be assessed against the curriculum statements for reading, writing and mathematics. In each subject they will be judged whether they are;

B – Beginning to work within the age expectation for their year group

W – Working within the age expectation for their year group

S – Securely working within the age expectation for their year group

A guide to termly expectations within the new national curriculum

Year group

End of Autumn term

End of Spring term

End of Summer term

Y1

1b

1w

1s

Y2

2b

2w

2s

Y3

3b

3w

3s

Y4

4b

4w

4s

Y5

5b

5w

5s

Y6

6b

6w

6s

From the End of the Summer term we will begin to roll out the assessment of non – core subjects. Teachers will assess pupils at emerging, expected or exceeding age related expectations using another tool called Symphony.

How will we know that assessments are accurate?

Teachers regularly meet in their year groups to moderate children’s work. This is a process where they look at children’s work and notes they have made about what they can do then agree the judgement about how well the child is doing. The teachers then identify next steps for the children to improve.

As well as working with different teachers in their year group, teachers meet across the school to support each other. This is particularly useful when a child is working below the age expectation for their year group. Ensuring that accurate judgements are being made and most importantly the next steps to improve are identified, is a useful process for teachers to support each other.

Once a term, teachers in each year group meet with other teachers from different schools near us. This ensures that there is accuracy of judgements and expectations across different schools. Teachers also gather ideas from each other.

At each parents evening your child’s teacher will inform you about how well your child is achieving against their age expectations. At the end of the academic year in their school report, you will be given a written record of how well they have achieved against age expectations.

At any time you can request information from your child’s teacher about how well they are doing and what you can do to support them.

How does the school know how well it is achieving?

Each term a teacher attends a pupil progress meeting with the headteacher or other members of the school leadership team. In this meeting they discuss:

how well all children and different groups e.g. boys, girls are achieving

how much progress has been made since the last term and since the beginning of the year

what they need to focus on in their teaching in class

whether any groups of children need additional help and support

what training a teacher may require

The headteacher and senior leaders in school then collate all the information and look to see how well the whole school is achieving.

At the end of each term the school provides staff and governors with an analysis and evaluation of how well children are achieving.

Within the analysis we identify different groups of children, how well they are doing and what needs to happen next to improve. We evaluate the impact of any previous actions.

Governors then follow this up in meetings with the members of the senior leadership team or other staff in school.